Islamabad called upon the nation to observe February 5 as a day of solidarity with the Kashmiris under Indian occupation. Predictably, the nation had a holiday, flying kites and watching Indian video movies. Holidaying for solidarity’s sake is a peculiarly Pakistani way of conducting policy. In Islamabad, a lackluster procession of drafted government employees was lead by five federal ministers. None conveyed a sense of the irony and each was keen to stay in view of the PTV camera.
Is it a holiday that we deserve, given our perilous state? Today, 80 percent of the economy is dysfunctional, and the part which is functional refuses to pay taxes. No one is investing, and where Mr. Sharif has invested, namely the Motorway, no one wants to go. The PM’s cronies in industry want the old concessions to continue. When Dr. Yaqub, the State Bank governor, puts his foot down, the PM flies into a rage. Can we blame him for refusing to work with Nawaz Sharif? Instead of worrying about the State Bank’s autonomy, Mr. Sharif’s inner circle is eyeing Dr. Yaqub’s soon-to-be-vacated job for a return to the old days of devil-may-care expenditure which made the deficit climb to 8 percent in 1993.
The State Bank’s governor is departing at a time when not only Pakistan’s economy is in a shambles but the importance of an autonomous central bank has been underlined by the collapse of the much-touted Asian Tigers. There is agreement amongst would economists that is primary cause of the collapse, first of the Asian currencies, then their economies as a whole was due to the fact that the highly centralised and dictatorial governments, such as those of Indonesia and South Korea, never permitted the development of an autonomous and controlling central bank.
But such logic is lost on our PM. He has successfully disabused his supporters of the delusion that his business background would incline him to prudence. First time around, he gave us the Yellow Cab scheme, then he gave us throwaway credit schemes without collateral, and eventually, he set about printing money to break all records. When Mr. Sharif fell in 1993, the economy was reeling. Ms Bhutto, as the next ruler, was imitative: she set new records of corruption whilst substituting gimmickry for policy. By the end of 1996, the economy was ready to commit hara-kiri on high-interest short-term loans.
In his second term, Mr. Sharif has made an art form of crippling vacillation. He was asked by Pakistan’s creditors to downsize government. He promised to do so and took World Bank money for it, but backed off at the eleventh hour. The PM’s shopkeepers’ constituency, led by him into believing that he comes to power only to shower tax-free bonanzas on them, refuses to pay the sales tax he has promised the IMF. He hasn’t had a second thought about the insanity of looking for messiahs in the private sector as an alternative to structural reform. He has farmed out the corporations to his loyalists with the result that he has failed to meet his privatisation objectives. These failures are now telling on the government’s ability to meet its other targets.
The more pressure builds up as a result of non-implementation, the more scatter-brained Mr. Sharif becomes. |The latest gem is that federal recruitments will not be made through the public service commission but through exams organised by each ministry on its own. In the Punjab, a panchayat system will put PML stalwarts in place to pave the way for local government polls. The stage is being set for the criminalisation before Mr. Sharif’s ouster in 1993.
Sectarianism and ethnic violence have not been tackled. Instead, Mr. Sharif has sewn up a deal with the MQM under which he has paid handsomely to known terrorists and is all set to bring back Altaf Hussain’s reign of terror to Karachi. The PM’s answer to the rising tide of obscurantism has been the appointment of a bigot for president without the approval of his own party. His ban on birth control adverts on the electronic media is proof, if proof were needed, of his primitive mind. Mr. Sharif’s new education policy will reopen mosque schools that failed under General Zia but swelled the ranks of zealots.
The PM does not believe in rethinking any of his ill-advised actions. In fact, he promises us more Yellow Cabs, more Motorways, more obscurantism, more speedy trial courts, more pie in the sky. Where does the PM’s bravado come from? Is it the delusion that he will be bailed out by multilateral leaders despite his hare-brained economies? Is this because he thinks the US will lean on our lenders because it has no other Pakistani candidate to push its Indo-Pak agenda? If so, for how long?
As in Ms Bhutto’s case, who in her second coming exposed herself as corrupt and inept, Nawaz Sharif this time around has shown that he can only comprehend the politics of absolute power. Not for him the structural reform of economy, state and society which Pakistan craves. Where do we go from here?